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Originally Posted by Mywifes335
Viffermike, sadly I think you are 100% right. In North Texas it's with some Billy, Bob or Joe Somebody operation lifting trucks and installing crooked "hillbilly splits" on pickups or ultra high-end ops like the guys who built Mullets 2000hp Lambo. No disrespect to the pickup crowd, but in my experience?, 60% of the pickups in DFW are purely commuter/recreational vehicles. Clean and dirt free. City cars almost. And they ALL have exhaust. I love the sound of a good American V8, but once it's in a pickup it just sounds like drone. Dunno why. Sorry, ranting. (I still want an F150 Raptor for my boy one day, btw).
I might just bite the bullet and get the Pure Stage 2 before I head back to DFW.
Honestly, there are SO MANY BMWs in Dallas...you'd figure it would be a sustainable business, no?
How do you feel about it?
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Pickups are status cars here for a variety of social groups, from blue-collar latinos and high-school jocks to ultraconservative, upwardly mobile farm-to-city college grads. And it's not pickups like the Raptor, or Lightning, or somesuch; it's the King Ranch edition-esque models loaded with every conceivable option, lift kits, exhaust, etc. They're what the conversion van was a generation ago. The culture's pretty amazing to observe ...
... yep: BMWs are all but ubiquitous north of the Trinity. IIRC, Classic BMW in Plano is one of the three largest-volume BMW dealers in the country, and BMW of Dallas used to be No. 1 back in the Clinton days. It's status, pure and simple. TONS are leased -- including higher-end models.
But it goes beyond that -- from Mercedes to Lexus, import luxury cars of all marques do well here. It's the culture: having a car is mandatory, Texas has no state income tax and is as economically stable a place as any in the country, and Dallas in particular is a primarily white-collar city in which appearances matter -- and since people drive so much here, that extends to the car. There's a reason the term "$30,000 millionaire" was coined here.
All that said, that's not why I own a BMW. But it's why a lot of others own one here. And therein lies the crux: I think the rate of North Texas BMW drivers who are interested in modifying their car is much lower than the U.S. average -- hence the relative dearth of tuner shops.